PvP: The Art Of Punching Your Friends In The Face For Fun And Profit

Remember, any and all concepts in this document may or may not make it to the final game. Some that do won’t be there for an issue or three. This is a mid-day update targeting a smaller group of players, and a normal update is still planned for tonight.

PVP. Let's discuss.

1: You will never be forced to PvP

2: You can, in fact, talk about Fight Club.

3: Seriously. You will never, ever be forced to PvP.

In fact, if you feel like ignoring PvP, you can close this update right now, a normal one will be sent out at the regular time. But if you want to have a little thrill, read on, we think you’ll find something you like. Especially towards the end.

I enjoy a nice spot of PvP now and again. Back on Virtue, we had Fight Night at the Golden Giza once a week. I still maintain the best one ever was when an entire battle royale, team versus team event accidentally zoned into someone’s mayhem mission. Everything exploded. It was glorious.

PvP requires a significantly different set of fundamental assumptions than PvE. It can work if it is built along recognizable principles of how powers interact, and in a similar way to the PvE system, but requires a fairly significant set of additional design. This may mean gear works differently, powers work differently, or simply that the combat system itself changes gears. After all, PvE generally involves beating up many small opponents, rather than one as powerful as you are. And the few equal to your power level just aren't as smart. It’s going to be a real design challenge, and one that we’re going to spend some time getting right.

PVP is an expected feature in this game. It can be fun, it’s a new way to add challenge, and in games without PvP, people who like to be aggressive take it out in other ways. Generally less friendly ones.

Of course, we remember the furor on the forums about PvP. We don’t intend to let the tail wag the dog. We know that PvP can be fun, but it’s secondary to the main game. The thing is, we don’t mind trying to increase the amount of fun people get from PvP. It’s a challenge. And we love challenges.

We’ve worked out eight types of PvP possible in this game, and we’d like to see what you think about them. We’re not sure if we’re going to include them all, and we’re not sure how fast we’re going to fit them in, but one or two are sure to make the cut.

1: We’ve already talked about a pure PvP layer of the game - you would be able to drop into a specific instance of any zone map and go PVP, away from all the other PvE players.

2: Zones: Persistent zones of PvP_OK, crafted for specific PvP play, as opposed to PvP_OK versions of PvE zones. Negative: Allows for gank teams. Positive: Allows for gank teams. PVP zones should have high risk, high reward elements that are fun. A free-for-all zone where collecting eight orbs gets you a temporary power is more fun than a PVP escort mission that ends up becoming a glorified game of Capture the Flag; especially when the “flag” keeps getting stuck on the scenery. Turning a zone purely heroic or villainous was actually pretty fun - the reward was MORE fighting, but awesome fighting. Of course, there’s always the option of messing with other players indirectly, by doing missions that change how much opposition the other side faces.

3: "Battlegrounds". Warhammer did them fairly well. Queue up, get put on a team on a small map designed for a fun assault from multiple directions, possibly with custom rulesets (The floor is lava!) and fight for ten or fifteen minutes. They had one battleground that was like the seven layer cake, only freestanding, and knocking people off the top and making them run back up was huge amounts of fun.

4: Our new concept, the Public Quest PVP. If you like this, we’ll try to get a full update out about them. Let’s just say that Batman can stop Catwoman from robbing that museum now. Or, we all know what happens when two superheroes or superteams meet, they fight, then they team up. We’ve got an idea on how to do that now. We like to call it ‘Social PVP’. It’s great to make new friends. Or to run into old ones. And, you know, punch them in the face.

5: Dueling. Yep. Pick a guy, then fight him. Doesn’t get any more classic than that.

6: Monster Play. Now, I know how LOTRO does it. And we've got two variant ideas. One is closer to theirs, but… what if you could take over a Giant Monster during an event? Now that’d be fun.

7: Arena combat. Which is sort of a subsection of battlegrounds. Nice area, scenic blood gutters, high stakes betting, roar of the crowd, Truckasaurus. One versus one, team versus team. Maybe in a replica of your very own superbase full of traps and weapons. Maybe in a section of city where you can blow everything up, even throw a guy right through the walls. Both this and Dueling can come in the traditional ‘you play your character’ form and the less traditional ‘you play some other character designed for PvP’ form.

8: Minigames. What happens if you combine a Base Builder, Mission Architect, and Mastermind controls? Well, you get to create a base, and staff it with goons and traps. And there’s your villain at one end, ready to activate his Moon Laser in exactly ten minutes. Can the hero get to you in time? Or, contrariwise, that hero’s visiting the Supermax Prison at the same time your villain tries to escape. Can your villain get out? This one’s going to take a while to get out there, but it’d be a lot of fun for a Dungeon Keeper or Evil Genius. No way we’ll have it at launch, though.

So, there you go, that’s how we see PVP. It’s not going to be the focus of our game, but it’s an element we certainly want to include. You guys get to help us choose how. Go on, there’s a box down below, let’s see how you want to make things happen!

Comments

5 and 7: I'm not a big PvP player; I admit that freely. However, when I've seen PvP implemented leaving out the staples tends to hurt the game. When people don't get what they expect, they are disappointed, become dissatisfied, complain, and it hurts the game. That's not the fault or responsibility of anyone but those people themselves, but I can see where they're coming from, if I re-contextualise it for PvE.

3: The most fun I have had on the occasional PVP I have undertaken was in Warhammer's Battlegrounds, in particular if there are objectives to complete as well as just beating up on people. A good mix of attacking and defending should be required

8. Sounds cool; would want to see what you did with it I was a big fan of DK when it was out; damn good fun. I would have liked EG too, if it hadn't been so broken. So, I'd probably play this. This could easily be left for a later update though; linked in with your mission creation possibly; use the same toolset, you know?

4+6: Potentially my favourite option. If you had a massive zone event flagged for PvP, and it involved a giant robot, and if, as a Hero, you could Fly or Jump etc in and try and stop that Robot, and be presented with an option to be flagged for PvP, and if, as a Villain, you could fly in and try and beat the Heroes down so the Robot could carve a path of mayhem and destruction... that would be awesome. As a mostly PvE player, that would be a natural PvP event to join in on, dynamically; it would feel like the kind of thing you'd be doing in a comic if there was one dedicated to your character and/or your Supergroup. You could have morale meters for supporting NPCs which would flag on both sides depending on how many real-life players had been defeated, or a kill-score that needed to be reached within a certain time for the Robot to be halted, or a clue-based series of missions to track down the Robot's controller, with Villains getting in your way and trying to mislead you by activating false positives on radars or leaving fake clues to lead you astray... God, but you could have SO much fun with this...

If you're worried about PvP/PvE cross-over, then you could have it so this is in a PvP zone but 'echoes' across to the PvE zones through psychic visions, space-time tears, dimensional portals, and any PvE characters could choose to travel to this alternate reality and beat it down because what if it comes through?

Anyway, you've got your designers, but it's fun to play with these kinds of ideas, and maybe there's something you can use in here :) Thanks for putting in so much time and effort on this project; I'm really loving what you guys have to say and the level of commitment is clear in your communications.

I LOVE you guys' idea of PvP design. As someone who pretty much does not ever do PvP, I'm glad to see it won't affect my PvE gameplay.
...That being said, the Minigames style shown in this update sounds like a LOT of fun!

I didn't do much in CoH when it came to PvP, since it mostly came down to deathmatch of one form or another, or team matches with group targeting of individual targets and that sort of thing. The game should definitely include that, since there are people who enjoy it. I'm the sort who enjoyed CS more than Quake, though, so I'd personally like to see team-objective-oriented PvP available, as well. It sounds from the update like you are considering options like that, so that rocks.

In games like that, I can still get into a kind of deathmatchy thing with someone on the other team at times, when that seems fun, but if the primary focus is on the goals, then I mostly work on that. Games like that -tend- to encourage less emphasis on maxed-out builds and more on team strategy, so they can make PvP more accessible for folks are not going to make it a primary focus of their gameplay. That also means that teams that coordinate well and practice will still come out on top over some random collection of casual players, but those two extremes don't often get attracted to the same events, so eh. Anyway, I am glad to see you are planning your PvP out, and that you're planning to let many flowers bloom.

I did want to say one thing about PVP, since some posters seem to lean this direction and even some of the tone of this update could possibly be seen to lean in that same direction: PVP is not a plague. The reason I want to say that is I think City of Heroes did not have a very good PVP setup (note that this does not mean it was bad through and through). The major issues with it were that it wasn't kept up, how it was set up made some players feel "forced" to do it (though I never felt like there was a need for a Warburg missile), and it was too different from how the rest of the game played.

I think the first is more important--keeping the PVP up to date. While this does require adding things to it, the big thing is maintaining its balance and how it was set up (whatever you do, don't do the CoH "we'll have a big 'revamp' around I13 and basically never look at it again, even if that system does not work as well as it should").

So I'd rather see you all try to do less at the start if it meant you could maintain it and adjust it well.

For my own two cents, I prefer instanced PVP over open world. Open world leads to gank teams, etc. Instanced PVP with objectives, however, is awesome (particularly if it's gated so the teams have a similar amount of players). Battlegrounds, Monster Play, Arena combat (something I wish SWTOR had included with it's recent inclusion of deatmatch PVP) all fit in there nicely.

And I have to say that your #8 sounds great. I'd love a mission builder type thing where you could challenge other players to defeat your scenario, enter your base, etc. There's a PC game from the early 2000s for the Wheel of Time book series, and I know a lot of people liked its PVP setup, where two players built a base with traps guarding a treasure and either protected it or tried to steal their opponents (can't quite remember all the ins and outs of it, but that's close). This sounds... awesomely similar and a great thing for a comic book game.

I am a big pvp fan and conosieur. In RIFT, sometimes people needed a break from quests and PVE'ing, and we all discovered great XP was delivered in PVP arenas. Very addicting. I also loved zombie apocalypse in Champions Online as well. I like all the options that were set out in this PVP update. I am very proud of the team. I am particularly interested in seeing option 8. I do miss the Base Raids of CoH, and I am interested to see if something similar can be implemented. Thank you very much for this update.

4) The worst experience I ever had in CoX, *ever*, was an obnoxious PvP stalker camping the terminals in Warburg. Yes, it was absolutely a valid tactic. Yes, it was absolutely within the purpose of Warburg. That doesn't change the fact that being on the short end of that stick *sucked* and there was simply no way to get around the need for it at the time. All we could do was quit playing and come back later. "Quit playing" should never be the answer on how to deal with part of the game.

Which is why I am *profoundly* against anything such as a (non-PvP) badge or a PvE-relevant temp power that can only be acquired by PvP. Saying that doesn't "force" PvP is true only in the same sense that one could say PvP is never forced in a PvP-only game, since you aren't forced to play the game at all.

1) I'm a badge addict. I never earned most of the PvP badges because even with the addition I didn't care *that* much. Which is fine, I see no problem with recognizing folks who go that route in the same ways that anything else might get recognized.

2) I actually happen to enjoy doing the occasional PvP in CO, or did until the arenas died. I'm not much of a duelist, though amusingly I ended up being the person to "step up" when the RP thing about Mot happened on CO. But really, the style I find the most fun by far is when nobody is taking it terribly seriously, and so everyone runs in, there is a giant mass of chaos, you find yourself respawned... and then you run right back in to do it all again. I know lots of folks aren't big on it, and there are lots of other styles, but that's the one I enjoy most. Which ties into the next point.

3) Most awesome answer to PvP balance issues I've ever seen so far is the Bite event on CO. Where participation means having to choose a side and taking on a standardized set of powers based on that. Same as a "closed deck" card tournament, everyone has equivalent (not identical necessarily identical) powers, and it doesn't end up being a contest of who can farm the most powerful gear-or-equivalent. These also tended to not attract the 'hardcore' PvP folks much due to the lack of advantage from *being* hardcore, so it would be terrible as an only option, but great as a way to give folks who want a much more casual PvP style somewhere to do it.

The current plan is not to have any zone be *exclusively* open-PvP. Theoretically, we can take any PvE zone and spawn an instance where it is open-PvP, thus, no need for any exclusive PvP zone. For CoH players, imagine if you clicked on the train and saw three instances of Atlas Park and one of them is marked "Open PvP". If you don't like PvP, you don't go there (and we're looking into ways of setting preferences and filters so that if you don't like PvP, you won't 'see' PvP instances, can't go there, and won't 'hear' PvP channels in chat).

I enjoy a small amount of PvP, and all of the options you hvae listed sound like they could work. I prefer something more like COH had, with designated zones, but can see how having city wide could be much more immersive.

While I understand that lots of people were upset at having to go into PvP zones for badges and such in COH, it is a problem you are not going to avoid. Even if you have no crossover at all, the fact that badges/accolades exist will create people that just have to have all of them and be "forced" to PvP when they don't like it. Not saying I agree with them, but it will happen.

As long as they remember to separate the stats, so when they "fix" it not effecting PvE play Just remember in Superhero games the Hero side usually never has honor, They are more villainy. Gank fest....Light Bulb: have there pvp effect there heroics or villainy meter

oh and to the person below about the "Trash Talk" the children and preteen do the majority Trash talking, so for those "concerned parents" stop being so blind. Then you got trolls to instigate it along for the fun of it. Trash talk is to be expected in PvP.

PVP specific zones are game content that PVE players cannot enjoy. No matter how fun you can make it sound, PVP is for competitive, twitch-adept, and low-ping players only. It also promotes bad behavior, which either results in management heavy-handedness or a perception that management does not care about keeping the environment "family friendly."

The option you did not include was PVP flagging; an option that assures no player would ever be vulnerable to PVP in any zone without consent. Filtering options could also make use of such a flag, allowing concerned parents to shield their children from PVP trash talk.

I'm a fan of PvP in PvE zones; it never made much sense to have, say, and Orc Warrior wandering around Goldshire because none of us were allowed to beat him up. It adds verisimilitude, and that's cool. So i'm definitely a big fan of [1] - go to a certain instance of the City and everything is "real" - and go somewhere else if you don't want to have to worry about fighting Players.

I could really take or leave [2], except I loved the Zone in CoH where you fought over the future of Atlas Park. It was neat and dynamic and it wasn't just "beating people up"; it *mattered*.

I'm not really interested in [3] as such, or [5] or [7] for that matter.

I think I like the idea of [4] if I understand where you're going with it (we really just have a teaser here), and I *LOVE* the idea of [6] - my buddy and I were just talking about how that would be a lot cooler than just having dumb-AI Paladins tromping around. I think I really like the idea of [8], too -- like a well-done [2], making PvP matter because you have a mission to complete (or fail) feels like a wonderful thing.

Something I left out. Gear. Not sure how gear is going to work in the game, if there is any, but just in case... I would like to see separate PvP gear, but not like, "Oh, you're a beast at PvP, lets give you the best gear ever so you can beast everyone and make it fun for nobody!" Just put everyone at max level, give them basic gear, let them build their PvP build separate from their regular build (within the same classification, just reorder power selection and upgrades and such), let skill determine the winner. I would like to take gear out of the equation and focus more on the skill you have at running your build.

I personally like option 2. Persistent zones where you can just drop in for a bout of PvP are fun to me. One suggestion though, don't just zone us in to a gank team. Zone in to a safe area, then once you're outside said area, free for all. Or team it up with others. Maybe do a good vs evil type situation, that way you can run around with like minded characters without necessarily being on a team. Not sure how that would work with the proposed alignment system but it's just a thought.

I admit I am well-known to be a Care Bear. I know I'm a poor loser, so I actively try to avoid one-on-one combat. But in CoH I did try it a few times. Once I just wandered around Siren's Call as my BS/SR scrapper, hunting Warriors, and giggled as people tried to figure out how to even HIT her. The best was during a group RP, in Warburg. We were blueside, hunting down a rogue hero, and got jumped by a team of villains. PANIC AND PANDEMONIUM! HEAL HEAL HEAL BUFF OH GOD HEAL!!! And then...lots of laughter as we got about rezzing and realized we'd defeated a team of PvPers.

It's the only game I've ever played where not being tricked out for PvP still gave you a shot at surviving it. I guess that's what would make me willing to consider traditional PvP.

On the other hand, Public Quests and Minigames sound oddly fun. Especially minigames...brings to mind a DB concept I had but never got to stick: "Will! It! Blend?!"

I liked PvP zones for the sense of fear while trying to accomplish PvE goals. Warburg was amazing. I got cornered once, utterly caned, and then it became a place of terror (but in hindsight, 98% safe).
I think the Giant Monster (run by player) scenario would cover that brilliantly. Some hours it might be using its AI, but others, it's possessed... and vewwy vewwy qwiet...

Hopefully the PvP will be what CoH was pre i13. I've PvPed in a lot of games and CoH pre i13 was the best.

There was room for improvement. There should have been better and more incentives to go to the PvP zones. I liked the target marker in Sirens Call, but if your target stayed in a safe area for too long, he should have been penalized. Perhaps an hour ban from Sirens Call. Warburg was fun, but should have been a true 'Free for All'. No Teaming, buffing, healing or nametags.

I avoid punching real people (or their avatars) in the face, but the indirect PVP options are sounding good. Some great ideas in the update and comments - races (including missions vs NPCs), minigames, various non-combat challenges, or battles between NPC groups that can be influenced by players to determine the victor. If some class-specific and/or "survive the NPC waves" challenges can be developed with leaderboards, I'd try them too.

I really liked how, in GW2 world combat or whatever it's called (Haven't played in 7,00 years) different classes were requested for different situations and actually played a big role in helping. Guardians would throw down shields for players to fall behind when archers were defending their fortress, Rangers would hang back and shoot into the fortress. I think it's important to maintain a sense of usefulness for each character and the abilities they hold. This should also work really well with super powers...

I think it would be cool to see groups fight each other in public on the streets. Even one on one duels. Teleporting above a group that your going to rumble with sound exiting and fun. As long as it is loose and free moving. Sound like it will be a blast.

Have you guys considered something similar to what Guild Wars 2 has? One PvP area where players use their PvE 'equipment' and a separate 'structured' PvP where everyone is balanced with the same choices for equipment and just pick what strategy they wish to use? Normally I hate PvP, but do love the way GW2 set it all up. Something to look at and consider, I suppose.

"...but requires a fairly significant set of additional design. This may mean gear works differently..."

Gear?

I trust you folks, but this word scares the hell out of me. When you say "gear" in this post, are you referring to some kind of actual equipment, or just to whatever you use to represent character progression?

I only did a little PvPing in CoH and nothing very serious, but I do love some of the ideas in here and would certainly give them a go - they actually make it sound fun.

The things that most interested me are minigames, Social PvP and Arena combat, and some of the other suggestions:

Zombie Man's idea of the Mario-Cart style races sounds great, as does Kenneth Kensters 'Competitive Race'. I agree with Michae Sctt Bauer that having actual contacts with story arcs would be a great way to introduce PvP, as well as havinig an involving reason for being in that situation.

Having some non combat challenges would be good - I liked the ski slopes in the Chalet and competing for the best time. There were some player-run race events which were fun too.

I agree that rewards gained in PvP should not effect PvE and vice versa, but that there should be badges, etc for PvP zones and PvP related activity

All of these ideas are really great, and some of the suggestions that players have are also great, but the problem was never the game. You can make as much tweaks to the game til the cows come home when it comes down to compromising with players, but you can never change the attitude of the "Mine is bigger" (Kudos for the term Jason :D) type of player. That's the only thing that turned me off about pvp in any game. I'm in the casual pvper category currently on the two other super mmo's and also in CoX when it ran, but again it was just the attitude that killed it for me. So hey, any of those ideas that make it to the game, I'd love to give it a go at them. It's just I know what I'm expecting with some players. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of good people in the PvP community, but it seems that you'd have to swim through the bs til you find those said players which is a rarity now a days sadly.

Now, there will likely be PvP achievements, like badges or a PvP leaderboard, but they will not be tied to PvE accolades, temporary powers, content, etc. This works the other way as well, no needing to collect PvE badges to get PvP rewards.

'Social' PVP sounds like a lot of fun, but I'm not quite sure how it would differ from 'Normal' PVP?
Other than that, Battlegrounds sounds like fun. I've only ever liked PVP in games like Left 4 Dead, where you have a goal, and Team 1(one)! tries to reach [Goal] while Team Two(2)to-too either defends or otherwise hinders.
Actually, that does sound more like the Minigames piece, which sounds particularly exciting...

While not a real big fan of pvp, I have participated to a certain extent in some games. But not in CoH, the design there was just terrible.

So, a few ideas pulled from various games:

1. Capture the Trophies ( DAOC ): In DAOC's RVR combat, you had 3 sides competing for control of 3 items of power,each of which gave your side combat bonuses in PVE while held.
You had to conquer the other sides castles ( i.e. bases ) to make their main castle conquerable due to fewer NPC guardians. Problems: You invariably had a realm which could muster a much larger force. To prevent this, you need to put a limit on the number of participants per side per map instance.

2. Destroy the Towers ( WoW ): You work your way across the map, burning down their towers, then defeat their NPC boss at the end.

3. Control Bases and earn points ( GW1 ): You control bases on the map each of which earn your side points every few minutes. When you reach a target point total, your side wins.

4. Capture the Flags ( WoW ): capture the other sides flag 3 times and return it to your base.

5. Competitive Race ( My Idea ): You dont directly fight each other, but race across parrallel maps competing to get to the other side in the least amount of time. You may be fighitng npcs or achieving other objectives.

One thing I do not want to see are changes that negatively impact the PVE experience that are put in solely due to PVP issues. Travel suppression, for example. It would also be nice to minimize the number of variances of how your powers work vs how they work in PVE. I really dont want to have to have two separate enhancement builds. It shouldnt be necessary.

I was never a big PvPer, but I did enjoy it on occasion ... and like Anna, I felt forced to do some PvP to continue my badge hoarding and gathering of as many temp powers as I could find (I had over 40 unused temp powers on my 50 blaster when CoX died -- I'm disgustingly proud of that).

But the last line of the post is the one I hope you can keep.

I always felt that most of the nerfing that happened in CoX had more to do with balancing the game for PvP than for "improving gameplay" for PvE. After one nerf, My blaster with a maxed-damage snipe power and the damage boost buff couldn't one-shot a same-level lieutenant, yet my lvl-20 stalker with dual-origin enhancements, using the same type of boost buff power could one-shot a +1 boss.

How is that nerf "improving gameplay" for my blaster? (No, never really got over that ...)

Anyway, I will keep my fingers crossed that "PvP design WILL never affect PvE play."

No...real, actual contacts with story arcs in the PVP zone. It bridges the gap between "get in there and fight other players" and "play your character in this MMO world." It's also a way to get non-pvpers more comfortable with how to do it. Have a storyline that the play through as they move through this zone which introduces them to more and more PvP. Make it a side storyline to the main game story, so not everyone feels compelled to do it, but give them a reason to be in the zone besides just "I want to fight." Keep in mind that the storyline has to INCLUDE PvP fighting.

An example is a zone I wanted to see created in CoH. I wanted a "Gladitoria" style alien gladiator world where heroes and villains of power are captured and forced to compete for some other race's entertainment. It's a comic book staple, and if done correctly, would be an AWESOME PVP zone. Have a contact and storyline that sends your hero/villain there to infiltrate the games and free/capture some missing heroes/villains. Your character is sent in undercover to prevent triggering the wrath of this alien race. This explains why your hero/villain can come and go unlike the captives in the zone, so you're not stuck in PVP until the end of the arc. As they play through the storyline they face various PvE villains in the world, as well as getting queued up in the Arena for various PvP fights, until at the end of the arc they unlock a PvP based Task Force. In this PvP Task Force they compete against players of the other side to overthrow the Emperor and, if heroes, set all of the captives free or, if villains, gain control of the captives as minions. Have some missions involves completing a goal faster than the opposing team, have other missions involve defeating more of an enemy than the opposing team to gain crowd favor, have one where each team attempts to survive a giant monster attack, one where the two teams work together to escape some trap, and finally where they fight each other for control. Have certain areas of the zone be "open arena" areas of constant PvP fighting and other PvE against the alien emperor's forces. Have the contact progress you through both the PvE and PvP until you're ready (and practiced at it for new players) to face the PvP Task force.

Secondly: I've always thought it would be a cool PvP element to involve more than just fighting, but PvP racing/healing/damage/survivability/control contests. In short, a Hero olympics. You pick the events you want to enter and, when enough queue for it, you go at it. Whether it's a contest to see which defender can keep his Tanker Pet alive longer than the rest, or which person can complete and obstacle course fastest, or which tanker can take aggro from his defender Pet longest, or which controller can lock down the most zombies to protect NPCs, etc. This would add a much more interesting type of competition that would appeal to different players.

Dungeon master sounds pretty cool, so does the monster play. It'd be cool if we could be the giant monster, as in our character, drinks formula, or casts spell and becomes the big bad, with our abilities but jacked up.

The one that sounds most interesting to me is where the two superteams meet up and fight. If you could then convert that into a PvE event, (Oh Noes, The real foe is this giant sack of HP foozle and his team of foozle clones! Let's get 'em.) I might be willing to try that and I hate PvP

My problem with PvP was the "mine is bigger" attitude of so many of the participants. I always felt that PvPing risked not defeat (which I could handle) but inflating an already overweening ego. Never felt worth it. On the other hand, I AM an RPer, first, last and always-- and PvP is a WONDERFUL RP tool (if you could manage to keep some lousy Stalker from interrupting things). These ideas you have sound great, and I hope to see many, if not most, or even all of them. I would probably at least TRY most of them. But yes, above all, do NOT let PvP interfere with PvE.

I have no interest in PVP, so I have no opinions about what flavours of it might be fun.

I just ask that the 'You will never be forced to PvP' isn't translated into the game as 'We will still gate off parts of the PVE game behind PVP barriers'. So no exploration badges in PVP-only zones, no PVE accolades that require completing PVP tasks, no defeat badges for enemies that only spawn in PVP zones, no bonus powers that function in PVE but can only be obtained through PVP. That was one of the causes of lasting ill-feeling between PVP and PVE players in CoX, and I think anything that divides the community unnecessarily would be a shame.

Similar to your monster fight idea, perhaps a PvPvE situation similar to some portions of Aion -- PC heroes and PC villains could compete against one another and against a powerful computer controlled enemy to seize "the prize" or control/defend "the resource". Heroes and villains could focus first on the powerful computer enemy, or saboutage one another and run the risk of fighting the enemy alone in the end, etc.

1. This is a must-have, you _will_ go live with this. It has all the advantages of a PVP-only server and all the advantages of a PVE-only server.

2. Nice to have, but I'd rather that PVP-only content not take too many resources away from dual-use content.

3. Also okay, but rather mundane.

4. I want to know more; this looks interesting. Is it similar to missions in APB? A villain takes a mission that involves committing a particular crime in a public area. A superhero takes mission to stop that particular crime. "Taking" the mission can be as simple as starting to commit the crime, or starting to stop the villain. Other villains and superheroes might be able to join in.

5. How about team vs team "duels"?

6. Could be fun. Have you considered "zombie" events where one side converts the other?

7. How about spectators? Fly into the arena stands and watch current fight from safety. Maybe even allow the crowd to /cheer or /jeer to give minor bonuses/penalties to combatants?

One of my personal ideas for a PvP mini-game would be an extremely casual (not for some hard-core PvPers) game that takes its inspiration from Mario Go-Kart. Kart is designed for young people to keep playing continuously without the need for any hard-core gaming skillz. As you race an easy course you pick up powers that mostly target the people in front of you, and especially the leader. This means the front runners are always at a disadvantage from being targeted and delayed, giving others a chance to catch up.

Now apply that to a Supers PvP setting where you have a fun task (e.g., 'capture' the rampaging space meerkats) and, at the same time, you can battle your rivals. Additionally, there are power-ups and items which will target the 'arena leaders' (e.g., punch a fire hydrant and it will be propelled in the air by a water spout and 'seek out' the current leader and knock them down).

The goal is to make it so chaotic, so fast-paced, so comical, that no one really cares too much about 'falling down' or even about winning. It would be a great introduction to PvP for those who have come to experience the dark side of some other PvP events.

So, I'm off to convince the game-design devs that this isn't insane. Bye! -zm

PvP, and any competition that is not directed against one's own failings, is a morally bankrupt modality that I have no personal interest in. I respect the opinions of those who think otherwise, and believe they should have their fun, also, but please make sure it does not in any way detract from the experience of those who eschew it, as they are the players you should care most about keeping.